The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/Alastor; or, the Spirit of Solitude
For works with similar titles, see Alastor.
ALASTOR
OR
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE
[Composed at Bishopsgate Heath, near Windsor Park, 1815 (autumn); published, as the title-piece of a slender volume containing other poems (see Bibliographical List, by Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, London, 1816 (March). Reprinted—the first edition being sold out—amongst the Posthumous Poems, 1824. Sources of the text are (1) the editio princeps, 1816; (2) Posth. Poems, 1824; (3) Poetical Works, 1839, edd. 1st and 2nd. For (2) and (3) Mrs. Shelley is responsible.]
PREFACE
The poem entitled Alastor may be considered as allegorical of one of the most interesting situations of the human mind. It represents a youth of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous genius led forth by an imagination inflamed and purified through familiarity with all that is excellent and majestic, to the contemplation of the universe. He drinks deep of the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. The magnificence and beauty of the external world sinks profoundly into the frame of his conceptions, and affords to their modifications a variety not to be exhausted. So long as it is possible for his desires to point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous, and tranquil, and self-possessed. But the period arrives when these objects cease to suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened and thirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself. He images to himself the Being whom he loves. Conversant with speculations of the sublimest and most perfect natures, the vision in which he embodies his own imaginations unites all of wonderful, or wise, or beautiful, which the poet, the philosopher, or the lover could depicture. The intellectual faculties, the imagination, the functions of sense, have their respective requisitions on the sympathy of corresponding powers in other human beings. The Poet is represented as uniting these requisitions, and attaching them to a single image. He seeks in vain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his disappointment, he descends to an untimely grave.
The picture is not barren of instruction to actual men. The Poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged by the furies of an irresistible passion pursuing him to speedy ruin. But that Power which strikes the luminaries of the world with sudden darkness and extinction, by awakening them to too exquisite a perception of its influences, dooms to a slow and poisonous decay those meaner spirits that dare to abjure its dominion. Their destiny is more abject and inglorious as their delinquency is more contemptible and pernicious. They who, deluded by no generous error, instigated by no sacred thirst of doubtful knowledge, duped by no illustrious superstition, loving nothing on this earth, and cherishing no hopes beyond, yet keep aloof from sympathies with their kind, rejoicing neither in human joy nor mourning with human grief; these, and such as they, have their apportioned curse. They languish, because none feel with them their common nature. They are morally dead. They are neither friends, nor lovers, nor fathers, nor citizens of the world, nor benefactors of their country. Among those who attempt to exist without human sympathy, the pure and tender-hearted perish through the intensity and passion of their search after its communities, when the vacancy of their spirit suddenly makes itself felt. All else, selfish, blind, and torpid, are those unforeseeing multitudes who constitute, together with their own, the lasting misery and loneliness of the world. Those who love not their fellow-beings live unfruitful lives, and prepare for their old age a miserable grave.
'The good die first,And those whose hearts are dry as summer dust,Burn to the socket!'
December 14, 1815.
Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quidamarem, amans amare.—Confess. St. August.
Earth, ocean, air, belovèd brotherhood!If our great Mother has imbued my soulWith aught of natural piety to feelYour love, and recompense the boon with mine;If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, 5With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,And winter robing with pure snow and crownsOf starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs; 10If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathesHer first sweet kisses, have been dear to me;If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beastI consciously have injured, but still lovedAnd cherished these my kindred; then forgive 15This boast, beloved brethren, and withdrawNo portion of your wonted favour now!
Mother of this unfathomable world!Favour my solemn song, for I have lovedThee ever, and thee only; I have watched 20 Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,And my heart ever gazes on the depthOf thy deep mysteries. I have made my bedIn charnels and on coffins, where black deathKeeps record of the trophies won from thee,25Hoping to still these obstinate questioningsOf thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghostThy messenger, to render up the taleOf what we are. In lone and silent hours,When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,Like an inspired and desperate alchymist31Staking his very life on some dark hope,Have I mixed awful talk and asking looksWith my most innocent love, until strange tearsUniting with those breathless kisses, made35Such magic as compels the charmed nightTo render up thy charge: . . . and, though ne'er yetThou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,Enough from incommunicable dream,And twilight phantasms, and deep noon-day thought,40Has shone within me, that serenely nowAnd moveless, as a long-forgotten lyreSuspended in the solitary domeOf some mysterious and deserted fane,I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain45May modulate with murmurs of the air,And motions of the forests and the sea,And voice of living beings, and woven hymnsOf night and day, and the deep heart of man.
There was a Poet whose untimely tomb50No human hands with pious reverence reared,But the charmed eddies of autumnal windsBuilt o'er his mouldering bones a pyramidOf mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness:—A lovely youth,—no mourning maiden decked 55With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:—Gentle, and brave, and generous,—no lorn bardBreathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:He lived, he died, he sung, in solitude. 60Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pinedAnd wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,And Silence, too enamoured of that voice, 65
By solemn vision, and bright silver dream,His infancy was nurtured. Every sightAnd sound from the vast earth and ambient air, Sent to his heart its choicest impulses. 70The fountains of divine philosophyFled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,Or good, or lovely, which the sacred pastIn truth or fable consecrates, he feltAnd knew. When early youth had passed, he left 75His cold fireside and alienated homeTo seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.Many a wide waste and tangled wildernessHas lured his fearless steps; and he has boughtWith his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men, 80His rest and food. Nature's most secret stepsHe like her shadow has pursued, where'erThe red volcano overcanopiesIts fields of snow and pinnacles of iceWith burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes 85On black bare pointed islets ever beatWith sluggish surge, or where the secret cavesRugged and dark, winding among the springsOf fire and poison, inaccessibleTo avarice or pride, their starry domes90Of diamond and of gold expand aboveNumberless and immeasurable halls,Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrinesOf pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.Nor had that scene of ampler majesty 95Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heavenAnd the green earth lost in his heart its claimsTo love and wonder; he would linger longIn lonesome vales, making the wild his home,Until the doves and squirrels would partake 100From his innocuous hand his bloodless food.Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,And the wild antelope, that starts whene'erThe dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspendHer timid steps to gaze upon a form 105More graceful than her own.His wandering stepObedient to high thoughts, has visitedThe awful ruins of the days of old:Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the wasteWhere stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers110Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strangeSculptured on alabaster obelisk,Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx,Dark Æthiopia in her desert hills 115Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,Stupendous columns, and wild imagesOf more than man, where marble daemons watchThe Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, 120He lingered, poring on memorialsOf the world's youth, through the long burning dayGazed on those speechless shapes, nor, when the moonFilled the mysterious halls with floating shadesSuspended he that task, but ever gazed 125Ana gazed, till meaning on his vacant mindFlashed like strong inspiration, and he sawThe thrilling secrets of the birth of time.
Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food,Her daily portion, from her father's tent,130And spread her matting for his couch, and stoleFrom duties and repose to tend his steps:—Enamoured, yet not daring for deep aweTo speak her love:— and watched his nightly sleep,Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips 135Parted in slumber, whence the regular breathOf innocent dreams arose: then, when red mornMade paler the pale moon, to her cold homeWildered, and wan, and panting, she returned.
The Poet wandering on, through Arabie 140And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,And o'er the aërial mountains which pour downIndus and Oxus from their icy caves,In joy and exultation held his way;Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within 145Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwineBeneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretchedHis languid limbs. A vision on his sleepThere came, a dream of hopes that never yet 150Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maidSate near him, talking in low solemn tones.Her voice was like the voice of his own soulHeard in the calm of thought; its music long,Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held 155His inmost sense suspended in its webOf many-coloured woof and shifting hues.Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,And lofty hopes of divine liberty,Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,160Herself a poet. Soon the solemn moodOf her pure mind kindled through all her frameA permeating fire: wild numbers thenShe raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobsSubdued by its own pathos: her fair hands 165Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harpStrange symphony, and in their branching veinsThe eloquent blood told an ineffable tale. The beating of her heart was heard to fillThe pauses of her music, and her breath 170Tumultuously accorded with those fitsOf intermitted song. Sudden she rose,As if her heart impatiently enduredIts bursting burthen: at the sound he turned,And saw by the warm light of their own life 175Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veilOf woven wind, her outspread arms now bare.Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lipsOutstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly. 180His strong heart sunk and sickened with excessOf love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelledHis gasping breath, and spread Ins arms to meetHer panting bosom: . . . she drew back a while,Then, yielding to the irresistible joy, 185With frantic gesture and short breathless cryFolded his frame in her dissolving arms.Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and nightInvolved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,Like a dark flood suspended in its course, 190Boiled back its impulse on his vacant brain.
Roused by the shock he started from his trance—The cold white light of morning, the blue moonLow in the west, the clear and garish hills,The distinct valley and the vacant woods, 195Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fledThe hues of heaven that canopied his bowerOf yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep,The mystery and the majesty of Earth,The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes 200Gaze on the empty scene as vacantlyAs ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven.The spirit of sweet human love has sentA vision to the sleep of him who spurnedHer choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues 205Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade;He overleaps the bounds. Alas! Alas!Were limbs, and breath, and being intertwinedThus treacherously? Lost, lost, for ever lost,In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep, 210That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of deathConduct to thy mysterious paradise,O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds,And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake,Lead only to a black and watery depth, 215While death's blue vault, with loathliest vapours hung,Where every shade which the foul grave exhalesHides its dead eye from the detested day, Conducts[1], Sleep, to thy delightful realms?This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart, 220The insatiate hope which it awakened, stungHis brain even like despair.While daylight heldThe sky, the Poet kept mute conferenceWith his still soul. At night the passion came,Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream, 225And shook him from his rest, and led him forthInto the darkness.—As an eagle graspedIn folds of the green serpent, feels her breastBurn with the poison, and precipitatesThrough night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud,Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight 231O'er the wide aëry wilderness: thus drivenBy the bright shadow of that lovely dream,Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night,Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells, 235Startling with careless step the moonlight snake,He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight,Shedding the mockery of its vital huesUpon his cheek of death. He wandered onTill vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep 240Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud;Through Balk, and where the desolated tombsOf Parthian kings scatter to every windTheir wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,Day after day a weary waste of hours, 245Bearing within his life the brooding careThat ever fed on its decaying flame.And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hairSered by the autumn of strange sufferingSung dirges in the wind; his listless hand 250Hung like dead bone within its withered skin;Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shoneAs in a furnace burning secretlyFrom his dark eyes alone. The cottagers,Who ministered with human charity 255His human wants, beheld with wondering aweTheir fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,Encountering on some dizzy precipiceThat spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of windWith lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet 260Disturbing not the drifted snow, had pausedIn its career: the infant would concealHis troubled visage in his mother's robeIn terror at the glare of those wild eyes,To remember their strange light in many a dream 265Of after-times; but youthful maidens, taughtBy nature, would interpret half the woe That wasted him, would call him with false namesBrother, and friend, would press his pallid handAt parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path 270Of his departure from their father's door.
At length upon the lone Chorasmian shoreHe paused, a wide and melancholy wasteOf putrid marshes. A strong impulse urgedHis steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there, 275Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.It rose as he approached, and with strong wingsScaling the upward sky, bent its bright courseHigh over the immeasurable main.His eyes pursued its flight.—'Thou hast a home, 280Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine home,Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neckWith thine, and welcome thy return with eyesBright in the lustre of their own fond joy.And what am I that I should linger here, 285With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attunedTo beauty, wasting these surpassing powersIn the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heavenThat echoes not my thoughts?' A gloomy smile 290Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlesslyIts precious charge, and silent death exposed,Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms.
Startled by his own thoughts he looked around. 296There was no fair fiend near him, not a sightOr sound of awe but in his own deep mind.A little shallop floating near the shoreCaught the impatient wandering of his gaze. 300It had been long abandoned, for its sidesGaped wide with many a rift, and its frail jointsSwayed with the undulations of the tide.A restless impulse urged him to embarkAnd meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste; 305For well he knew that mighty Shadow lovesThe slimy caverns of the populous deep.
The day was fair and sunny, sea and skyDrank its inspiring radiance, and the windSwept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves.Following his eager soul, the wanderer 311Leaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloftOn the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil seaLike a torn cloud before the hurricane. 315
As one that in a silver vision floatsObedient to the sweep of odorous windsUpon resplendent clouds, so rapidlyAlong the dark and ruffled waters fledThe straining boat.—A whirlwind swept it on, 320With fierce gusts and precipitating force,Through the white ridges of the chafèd sea.The waves arose. Higher and higher stillTheir fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourgeLike serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp. 325Calm and rejoicing in the fearful warOf wave ruining on wave, and blast on blastDescending, and black flood on whirlpool drivenWith dark obliterating course, he sate:As if their genii were the ministers 330Appointed to conduct him to the lightOf those beloved eyes, the Poet sateHolding the steady helm. Evening came on,The beams of sunset hung their rainbow huesHigh 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray 335That canopied his path o'er the waste deep;Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locksO'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day;Night followed, clad with stars. On every side 340More horribly the multitudinous streamsOf ocean's mountainous waste to mutual warRushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mockThe calm and spangled sky. The little boatStill fled before the storm; still fled, like foam 345Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;Now leaving far behind the bursting massThat fell, convulsing ocean: safely fled—As if that frail and wasted human form, 350Had been an elemental god.At midnight The moon arose: and lo! the ethereal cliffsOf Caucasus, whose icy summits shoneAmong the stars like sunlight, and aroundWhose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves 355Bursting and eddying irresistiblyRage and resound for ever.—Who shall save?—The boat fled on,—the boiling torrent drove,—The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,The shattered mountain overhung the sea, 360And faster still, beyond all human speed,Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,The little boat was driven. A cavern thereYawned, and amid its slant and winding depthsIngulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on 365 With unrelaxing speed.—'Vision and Love!'The Poet cried aloud, 'I have beheldThe path of thy departure. Sleep and deathShall not divide us long!'
The boat pursuedThe windings of the cavern. Daylight shone 370At length upon that gloomy river's flow;Now, where the fiercest war among the wavesIs calm, on the unfathomable streamThe boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,Exposed those black depths to the azure sky, 375Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fellEven to the base of Caucasus, with soundThat shook the everlasting rocks, the massFilled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm:Stair above stair the eddying waters rose, 380Circling immeasurably fast, and lavedWith alternating dash the gnarled rootsOf mighty trees, that stretched their giant armsIn darkness over it. I' the midst was left,Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud, 385A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round,Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,Till on the verge of the extremest curve, 390Where, through an opening of the rocky bank,The waters overflow, and a smooth spotOf glassy quiet mid those battling tidesIs left, the boat paused shuddering.—Shall it sinkDown the abyss? Shall the reverting stress 395Of that resistless gulf embosom it?Now shall it fall?—A wandering stream of wind,Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,And, lo! with gentle motion, between banksOf mossy slope, and on a placid stream, 400Beneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark!The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar,With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.Where the embowering trees recede, and leaveA little space of green expanse, the cove 405Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowersFor ever gaze on their own drooping eyes,Reflected in the crystal calm. The waveOf the boat's motion marred their pensive task,Which naught but vagrant bird, or wanton wind, 410Or falling spear-grass, or their own decayHad e'er disturbed before. The Poet longedTo deck with their bright hues his withered hair,But on his heart its solitude returned, And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid 415In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frameHad yet performed its ministry: it hungUpon his life, as lightning in a cloudGleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floodsOf night close over it.
The noonday sun 420Now shone upon the forest, one vast massOf mingling shade, whose brown magnificenceA narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,Scooped in the dark base of their aëry rocksMocking its moans, respond and roar for ever. 425The meeting boughs and implicated leavesWove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as ledBy love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank,Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark 430And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,Expanding its immense and knotty arms,Embraces the light beech. The pyramidsOf the tall cedar overarching frameMost solemn domes within, and far below, 435Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,The ash and the acacia floating hangTremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothedIn rainbow and in fire, the parasites,Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around 440The grey trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughsUniting their close union; the woven leaves 445Make net-work of the dark blue light of day,And the night's noontide clearness, mutableAs shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawnsBeneath these canopies extend their swells,Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms 450Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glenSends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine,A soul-dissolving odour to inviteTo some more lovely mystery. Through the dell,Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep 455Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,Like vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well,Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,Images all the woven boughs above,And each depending leaf, and every speck 460Of azure sky, darting between their chasms;Nor aught else in the liquid mirror lavesIts portraiture, but some inconstant starBetween one foliaged lattice twinkling fair, Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon, 465Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wingsHave spread their glories to the gaze of noon.
Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheldTheir own wan light through the reflected lines 470Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depthOf that still fountain; as the human heart,Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heardThe motion of the leaves, the grass that sprung 475Startled and glanced and trembled even to feelAn unaccustomed presence, and the soundOf the sweet brook that from the secret springsOf that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemedTo stand beside him—clothed in no bright robes 480Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,Borrowed from aught the visible world affordsOf grace, or majesty, or mystery;—But, undulating woods, and silent well,And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom 485Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,Held commune with him, as if he and itWere all that was,—only . . .when his regardWas raised by intense pensiveness, . . . two eyes,Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought, 490And seemed with their serene and azure smilesTo beckon him.
Obedient to the lightThat shone within his soul, he went, pursuingThe windings of the dell.—The rivulet,Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine 495Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fellAmong the moss with hollow harmonyDark and profound. Now on the polished stonesIt danced; like childhood laughing as it went:Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept, 500Reflecting every herb and drooping budThat overhung its quietness.—'O stream!Whose source is inaccessibly profound,Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness, 505Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs,Thy searchless fountain, and invisible courseHave each their type in me; and the wide sky.And measureless ocean may declare as soonWhat oozy cavern or what wandering cloud 510Contains thy waters, as the universeTell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall wasteI' the passing wind!'
Beside the grassy shoreOf the small stream he went; he did impress 515On the green moss his tremulous step, that caughtStrong shuddering from his burning limbs. As oneRoused by some joyous madness from the couchOf fever, he did move; yet, not like him,Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame 520Of his frail exultation shall be spent,He must descend. With rapid steps he wentBeneath the shade of trees, beside the flowOf the wild babbling rivulet; and nowThe forest's solemn canopies were changed 525For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.Grey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmedThe struggling brook; tall spires of windlestraeThrew their thin shadows down the rugged slope,And nought but gnarled roots[2] of ancient pines 530Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping rootsThe unwilling soil. A gradual change was here,Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thinAnd white, and where irradiate dewy eyes 535Had shone, gleam stony orbs:—so from his stepsBright flowers departed, and the beautiful shadeOf the green groves, with all their odorous windsAnd musical motions. Calm, he still pursuedThe stream, that with a larger volume now 540Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and thereFretted a path through its descending curvesWith its wintry speed. On every side now roseRocks, which, in unimaginable forms,Lifted their black and barren pinnacles 545In the light of evening, and its precipiceObscuring the ravine, disclosed above,Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves,Whose windings gave ten thousand various tonguesTo the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands 550Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,And seems, with its accumulated crags,To overhang the world: for wide expandBeneath the wan stars and descending moonIslanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams, 555Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloomOf leaden-coloured even, and fiery hillsMingling their flames with twilight, on the vergeOf the remote horizon. The near scene,In naked and severe simplicity, 560 Made contrast with the universe. A pine,Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancyIts swinging boughs, to each inconstant blastYielding one only response, at each pauseIn most familiar cadence, with the howl 565The thunder and the hiss of homeless streamsMingling its solemn song, whilst the broad riverFoaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,Fell into that immeasurable voidScattering its waters to the passing winds. 570
Yet the grey precipice and solemn pineAnd torrent were not all;—one silent nookWas there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,It overlooked in its serenity 575The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars.It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smileEven in the lap of horror. Ivy claspedThe fissured stones with its entwining arms,And did embower with leaves for ever green, 580And berries dark, the smooth and even spaceOf its inviolated floor, and hereThe children of the autumnal whirlwind bore,In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay,Red, yellow, or ethereally pale, 585Rivals the pride of summer. 'Tis the hauntOf every gentle wind, whose breath can teachThe wilds to love tranquillity. One step,One human step alone, has ever brokenThe stillness of its solitude:—one voice 590Alone inspired its echoes;—even that voiceWhich hither came, floating among the winds,And led the loveliest among human formsTo make their wild haunts the depositoryOf all the grace and beauty that endued 595Its motions, render up its majesty,Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,Commit the colours of that varying cheek, 600That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.
The dim and horned moon hung low, and pouredA sea of lustre on the horizon's vergeThat overflowed its mountains. Yellow mistFilled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank 605Wan moonlight even to fulness; not a starShone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,Danger's grim playmates, on that precipiceSlept, clasped in his embrace.—O, storm of death! Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night: 610And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, stillGuiding its irresistible careerIn thy devastating omnipotence,Art king of this frail world, from the red fieldOf slaughter, from the reeking hospital, 615The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bedOf innocence, the scaffold and the throne,A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin callsHis brother Death. A rare and regal preyHe hath prepared, prowling around the world; 620Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and menGo to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrineThe unheeded tribute of a broken heart.
When on the threshold of the green recess 625The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that deathWas on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,Did he resign his high and holy soulTo images of the majestic past,That paused within his passive being now, 630Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breatheThrough some dim latticed chamber. He did placeHis pale lean hand upon the rugged trunkOf the old pine. Upon an ivied stoneReclined his languid head, his limbs did rest, 635Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brinkOf that obscurest chasm;—and thus he lay,Surrendering to their final impulsesThe hovering powers of life. Hope and despair,The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear 640Marred his repose; the influxes of sense,And his own being unalloyed by pain,Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fedThe stream of thought, till he lay breathing thereAt peace, and faintly smiling:—his last sight 645Was the great moon, which o'er the western lineOf the wide world her mighty horn suspended,With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemedTo mingle. Now upon the jagged hillsIt rests; and still as the divided frame 650Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,That ever beat in mystic sympathyWith nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still:And when two lessening points of light aloneGleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp 655Of his faint respiration scarce did stirThe stagnate night:—till the minutest rayWas quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.It paused—it fluttered. But when heaven remained Utterly black, the murky shades involved 660An image, silent, cold, and motionless,As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.Even as a vapour fed with golden beamsThat ministered on sunlight, ere the westEclipses it, was now that wondrous frame— 665No sense, no motion, no divinity—A fragile lute, on whose harmonious stringsThe breath of heaven did wander—a bright streamOnce fed with many-voiced waves—a dreamOf youth, which night and time have quenched for ever, Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now. 671
O, for Medea's wondrous alchemy,Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleamWith bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhaleFrom vernal blooms fresh fragrance! O, that God, 675Profuse of poisons, would concede the chaliceWhich but one living man has drained, who now,Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feelsNo proud exemption in the blighting curseHe bears, over the world wanders for ever, 680Lone as incarnate death! O, that the dreamOf dark magician in his visioned cave,Raking the cinders of a crucibleFor life and power, even when his feeble handShakes in its last decay, were the true law 685Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled,Like some frail exhalation; which the dawnRobes in its golden beams,—ah! thou hast fled!The brave, the gentle and the beautiful,The child of grace and genius. Heartless things 690Are done and said i' the world, and many wormsAnd beasts and men live on, and mighty EarthFrom sea and mountain, city and wilderness,In vesper low or joyous orison,Lifts still its solemn voice:—but thou art fled— 695Thou canst no longer know or love the shapesOf this phantasmal scene, who have to theeBeen purest ministers, who are, alas!Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lipsSo sweet even in their silence, on those eyes 700That image sleep in death, upon that formYet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tearBe shed—not even in thought. Nor, when those huesAre gone, and those divinest lineaments,Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone 705In the frail pauses of this simple strain,Let not high verse, mourning the memoryOf that which is no more, or painting's woeOr sculpture, speak in feeble imageryTheir own cold powers. Art and eloquence, 710 And all the shows o' the world are frail and vainTo weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.It is a woe too 'deep for tears,' when allIs reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves 715Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;But pale despair and cold tranquillity,Nature's vast frame, the web of human things,Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.720
- ↑ Conduct ed. 1816. See notes at end.
- ↑ 530 roots ed. 1816: query stumps or trunks. See note at end.